Talks - How to See God Everywhere

How to See God Everywhere

How to See God Everywhere

Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami
, 2003-04-04

Bodhinatha continues his exploration of sloka 1 from Dancing with Siva with sentences 2 and 3 - "We came from God, live in God, and are evolving into oneness with God. We are in Truth, the truth we seek." God is our life, the Life of our life, and an important practice is to seek to discover this life energy in the trees, the animals, and especially people. A practical method Gurudeva taught was to look deeply into the eyes of another person and see God Siva within them. This practice is the essence of namaskaram, the Hindu's gracious greeting through which we affirm and discover the Divinity within others.

Unedited Transcript:

We have the second sentence, "We came from God, live in God, and are evolving into oneness with God."

Gurudeva elaborates on this in the bhasya. "Vedic rishis have given us courage by uttering the simple truth - God is the Life of our life." As we know in the Tamil language that is 'uyirkkuyir', right in my lexicon. Two 'uyir' with a 'kk' in the middle. 'Uyir-kk-uyir', God is the Life of our life.

"Siva Yogaswami carried it further by saying, "There is one thing God cannot do. God cannot separate Himself from us."This is because God is our life, God is the Life in the birds, God is the Life in the fish, God is the Life in the animals. Becoming aware of this life energy in all that lives and becoming aware of Gods loving presence within us. Each day we should try to see the life energy in trees, birds, animals and people."

I would say, especially people. Again, that is a wonderful philosophy. But unless we figure out a way to practice it, we don't necessarily live it or feel it. It is too high-minded, it does not really connect with the state of mind we are in. So, Gurudeva gave us some simple guidelines for how to practice this, which was to look into the eyes of another person. Don't look at their feet or hands. You look into their eyes. If you look into their eyes deeply enough, you will see God Siva in there as the Life of their life and you will see them as a divine being.

Of course, if we don't like the person this can be hard to do. If we are mad at the person and are not talking to them today, this can be hard to do. We have to get by any kind of external emotional relationship we thought we wanted to create with that person. We have to set that aside. We cannot do it if we are going through those kinds of thoughts about another person. We have to just look deeply into their eyes, deeply enough to see God. By setting aside these concepts of likes and dislikes and emotional tangles with people.

It is a wonderful practice and it is the essence of the idea of namaskaram. Namaskaram is more than just a cultural gesture, at its deepest level. It is explained beautifully in the lexicon in 'Dancing with Siva'. It says, "By joining the left and right hand, we balance the ida and pingala forces putting us into the sushumna or spiritual consciousness in the spine, which allows us to see with our third eye deeply enough into the other individual, to see their divinity."

Oh, what a definition! I love our lexicon, it is really good. That is the idea there.

The third sentence, "We are in truth, the Truth we seek. Aum."

What does that mean? We are in truth, the Truth we seek. Well, Gurudeva says it another way elsewhere, "We are already That which we seek," which is even a little clearer. We don't have to wait, we don't have to do something. At the deepest level, we are already Parasiva and Satchidananda. It is only the soul body that is in a state of becoming or maturing. But the rest is sitting there ready to claim, anytime we want to claim it, as we have talked about. But that is in the future slokas, I don't want to use that all up today. Leave it for the next talk, slokas 3, 4,and 5, that gets more into that. But, this hints at it in a very nice way, that we are already the Truth. Very nice.